Down the Road to the Chemist's
by Karalora
Summary: There is a great deal that is uncertain in this moment, but one thing is definite: this is the most sensitive, most crucial mission they have ever undertaken. They must not fail. "Bubbled" from the perspective of the Crystal Gems.


Sardonyx _bursts_ apart—into all three pieces, no less (although two of them hastily recombine before the forms settle)—at the sight. It's the worst thing the Crystal Gems could have imagined: Steven—their dear, _vulnerable_ Steven—being swept out with the Rubies into the void of space. It happens so fast that there's no chance to save him, no _time_ to seize him and hold on, even if the shock hadn't robbed them of their wits.

The rush of wind stops, the base emptied of its atmosphere. Amethyst runs out onto the lunar surface, reaching up after the rapidly retreating figure as though she could extend her arm far enough to catch him and reel him in. And maybe _she_ could, if she hadn't already pushed her shapeshifting to its very limit this day.

"Garnet!" Pearl begs. "What do we _do_? We have to _do_ something; he can't _survive_ out there! Garnet? _Garnet!_ " Their leader seems frozen in place, staring in abject horror. But not at Steven, who is lost to sight by now in any case. Pearl has seen this before: Garnet is fixated on her own Future Vision…and what she sees terrifies her. Pearl's own terror rises yet further in response.

There is a tiny flash at the very edge of visibility. Amethyst finds reserves of stamina she didn't even know she had and pulls off one more shapeshift, taking the form of a hawk. She only manages it for a few seconds, but it's enough—the raptor's eyes spot what few Gems could.

"HA!" she bellows, wobbling back into her natural form. "He bubbled himself! He's alive, guys! That's my Steven!"

Garnet springs back into animation. "Crystal Gems, MOVE! We don't have much time!" If the other two consider it hypocritical of her to growl about time when she just wasted nearly a full minute in her traumatized trance, they don't say so. Obedience comes naturally to both of them—Amethyst the born foot soldier and Pearl the handcrafted servant—and they follow without a word as Garnet turns _away_ from the gaping airlock door and dashes back toward…

…the Rubies' spacecraft.

"Pearl, I need you to fly it," says Garnet.

"Of course. That shouldn't be any trouble." says Pearl. It's not mere bravado, given her knack for machinery and the fact that _this_ craft must be intuitive enough for common Rubies to operate. But there is a slight tremor in her voice nonetheless. She fears they are embarking on a fool's errand, spurred on by false hope. She has nothing but respect for Garnet's _intelligence_ , but the other Gem is not exactly an _intellectual_. She has never, for example, whiled away idle time exploring the realm of probability. Pearl has (along with every other branch of mathematics), and she's not entirely sure Garnet really appreciates just how _vast_ outer space is, how _enormous_ the odds are that they face. Steven is a mere speck out there, an atom, a quark. If they are able to find him, it might well be the unlikeliest event ever to occur in the history of the…since the Big Bang.

In short, it will take a miracle. Pearl isn't sure she believes in miracles.

But they have to try.

"Amethyst," Garnet continues once they are on board and Pearl is busying herself with the takeoff sequence, "this ship must have an outside scanner of some kind. Find it and figure out how to work it."

"I'm on it," says Amethyst quietly, scrambling over to a control panel that seems promising enough: it has a screen.

Garnet seats herself tailor-style in the middle of the ship. "Listen, you two. I'm sorry for freezing up back there. I know it wasn't helpful. My Future Vision was showing me nothing but tragedy…there wasn't a single scenario where we were able to rescue Steven in time, and I couldn't bear it. But then he threw out his bubble and suddenly he had a chance. I could see a future where he was safe with us again. It's still a long shot, and we're working under a time limit."

"How long do we have?" says Pearl.

"I don't know. We have no way of knowing how much air he was able to catch in the bubble, and there are other hazards out there. His options for self-defense are sharply limited. His best chance is for us to find him as quickly as possible. Pearl, I'm counting on you to start us out on the most likely trajectory for him to have followed when he was sucked out. I'll use Future Vision to narrow it down from there."

Pearl understands the logic behind this plan, though it does little to dispel her doubts. Amethyst looks up from her screen, pulling a face, and demands " _How?_ "

"Probability curves," Pearl says, vaguely, maneuvering the now-hovering craft out of the airlock and setting its course.

Garnet nods. "Right now Steven's fate is very much in question. I can see futures where we find him, and others—lots of others—where we don't. But the future depends on the present. Our chances of success change depending on which direction we go. If we move toward him, the futures where we rescue him will become more prominent in my foresight. If we go the wrong way, those same futures will retreat and I'll see more of the bad ones."

"Ohhhhhhh," says Amethyst. "Like Hot and Cold." She makes a forced-sounding chuckle. "Hey, get it? Hot and Cold? Garnet? Ruby and Sapphire?"

"Amethyst, this _really_ isn't the time," huffs Pearl. "Initiating launch." The ship lurches into high speed along the same path presumably taken by Steven's bubble.

There is a great deal that is uncertain in this moment, but one thing is definite: this is the most sensitive, most crucial mission they have _ever_ undertaken.

They _must_ not fail.

The next few hours pass in tension and near-silence, broken only by Garnet's terse adjustments to their course as guided by her visions. For the most part, she doesn't tell them _what_ she sees—they don't need to know of every disaster avoided or averted—but from time to time, little sounds of alarm or frustration or relief attest to her inner turmoil. Pearl and Amethyst, for their part, try to respect Garnet's mental privacy by not listening. Amethyst has the scanner to focus on, with all its little pictograms indicating the kinds of objects and substances that it can detect, but Pearl, between directional adjustments, has only...her own thoughts.

They are increasingly dark. Try as she might, she cannot banish her sense of hopelessness about it all. All this time and effort, and they still have no _confirmation_ that they'll find him. This method of navigation relies far too much on trial and error for Pearl's peace of mind, especially when they don't know how much time they have.

It's still outer space. There's still too _much_ of it. Most of the time, Pearl uses her pragmatism to temper her pessimism, but in this case the two of them are in accord. She doesn't need Future Vision to be agonizingly aware of all that can potentially befall Steven out there. There's radiation and asteroids and...the enemy Rubies, come to think of it. But the one that looms the largest by far is...that they'll simply miss him. They won't get close enough to zero in on him before his oxygen runs out. Even if—best-case scenario—the bubble keeps him in stasis, like the ones they send to the Temple, that doesn't change the fact that the sheer size of the cosmos beggars the imagination.

They could keep searching for millennia—until this moment is long past as the Gem War is now—and never even come close to finding him.

Pearl is unaware that she has begun to make fretting noises of her own, attracting Amethyst's notice (Garnet is too engrossed in the future to have much awareness of the present). Still, the younger Gem doesn't make anything of it until all at once, without warning, Pearl's composure crumbles and she sags in her chair, sobbing into her hands. It's all the more attention-grabbing for how quiet it is, and Amethyst immediately abandons her post to rush to Pearl's side.

"Hey, hey," she says in her best soothing tone, resting a hand on Pearl's arm in what she hopes is a comforting gesture. "It's going to be okay."

" _No,_ " Pearl replies, somehow whispering emphatically, shaking her head. "It's never going to be okay. He's _gone_ , Amethyst. We'll never find him. We'll never see him again. It's impossible."

The stark statement hits Amethyst almost like a physical blow. "Y-you don't know that," she says, more plaintive than persuasive. "Garnet hasn't given up."

"Future Vision isn't always right. She wouldn't _exist_ if it were. And now...Rose...her sacrifice... _wasted_..."

Amethyst has no idea what to say or do in response. She can deal with Pearl's typical panic mode, with varying amounts of grace depending on circumstances, but this...fatalism...is something else altogether. Pearl is breaking down right in front of her and she needs to hear something reassuring but it needs to be something she can accept, and Amethyst doesn't know what that is, and—

Garnet abruptly stands. "Something's wrong. The visions aren't..." She frowns slightly. "Amethyst, you're supposed to be monitoring the scanner."

"It's P," says Amethyst. "She started freaking out a little. I couldn't just let her sit here by herself."

"Pearl," says Garnet. "I know how hard it is to stay positive right now. But we don't have time for this. Steven's counting on us."

Pearl's tears fall faster. " _Please!_ Stop asking me to pretend we have any chance of finding him! Can't you see this isn't going to _work_?"

Garnet swivels Pearl's chair so that the two of them can face each other and gently holds her by the upper arms. "But it _is_ working. Every time you correct our course, even by a fraction of a degree, I can see him a bit more clearly. This mission is not beyond hope yet, Pearl, and I expect you to see it through to the end. Steer the ship. Don't think about the odds."

Pearl averts her eyes. "But..." she says, more out of stubbornness than anything else, before trailing off.

"Don't make me give you a direct order, Pearl."

Biting her lip, Pearl nods. Garnet releases her, and she turns back to the controls.

Amethyst, for her part, has already resumed her post. Nothing yet. She's pretty sure she has the thing set to detect organic matter and quartz, but only in combination, so they won't get sidetracked if they happen to run into some random space whale or lost Citrine out here. Amethyst wishes Peridot were with them; Peri could probably fine-tune this thing to pick up on Steven and _only_ Steven, and maybe also crank up its range to a few light-years. Maybe then Pearl would feel better.

More time passes. None of them are sure how much. They're measuring their progress by probability of success, not time...but it's certainly hours later when Garnet, in a strained tone, issues one more vector change and then, once it is in place, sighs deeply.

"That's done it. Pearl, lock in our course and speed."

"You mean...?"

"Yes. We're certain to intercept Steven now. We'll need to pay extra attention to the scanner, but we're on the right track for sure."

"Garnet, that's _wonderful_!" Pearl all but shrieks, clapping her hands together.

Amethyst prepares to let loose a " _Whoo-hooooo!_ " but only gets as far as the fist pump before something stops her. "Wait...but if we're so close, why aren't you, you know, happy? Unless you are and you're just holding it in like usual."

"Because," says Garnet, "there's still a lot of uncertainty about the condition we'll find him in."

She spares them the details. They might find him alive and well. They might find him alive, but not at all well—damaged by oxygen deprivation, cold, low pressure. She's seen futures where his body is relatively unscathed but his mind is traumatized, and he's never the same again. She's seen him with his gem cracked, and even her power is at a loss to predict the consequences of that, because there has never been a Gem with a permanent, material body before.

She's seen him dead.

She's already steeling herself in case she has to tell _that_ to Greg. And she intends to be the one to tell him, if Steven's condition is anywhere below "scuffed and rattled" when they find him. She owes him that much. She can't think about it _too_ hard, or her Future Vision will start running through all of the man's possible reactions to the news, and she can't afford that kind of distraction. Their course is locked, preventing accidental deviations, but if something should change due to some previously unforeseen event, they'll need to unlock and adjust quickly. Garnet has to remain alert to _that_ possibility.

Leadership is weighing on her very heavily just now.

Still, on balance, this is the most positive her visions have been since the moment Steven went sailing out of the airlock.

It's not too much later when the scanner console begins to chirp.

It's definitely Steven's bubble, and he's definitely inside it. But it's much smaller than when Amethyst first spotted it back at the moon—only a couple of feet across. Steven is curled in on himself as humans are known to do in a state of severe distress, unmoving. He doesn't react when the ship's bright searchlights fall upon him, or when the tractor beam begins to draw him in. He's clearly at the very end of his rope. As the bubble settles into place on the ship's floor, Steven loses his grip on whatever scrap of consciousness has been allowing him to maintain it; it dissipates, and he begins to fall over limply.

Garnet catches him before he sprawls, holding him in a kneeling position, gently shaking him and calling his name repeatedly. He's breathing, but shallowly, as if his body has resigned itself to an inadequate air supply. He's definitely paler than usual, and he feels...temperature sensitivity is a tricky area for Garnet, who can casually withstand any extremes the planet Earth can produce, but it seems to her that Steven is colder than usual as well. She draws on Ruby, just a little, exuding warmth from her hands, driving away the chill of the void.

Yet she is forced—all three of them are forced—to realize how little they know about human biology and medicine. They can understand a wound, a bone fracture, a microbial infection, and take the appropriate steps to counter such things. But humans are fragile in so _many_ ways, not all of them easily grasped by beings as durable as the Gem race. Steven isn't as frail as a full human, but if he doesn't shake this off, whatever it is, it's just possible that they were too late after all.

 _No, please, not that, wake_ up _, Steven..._

And he does. A little shudder, a deeper breath (not quite a gasp), and then his eyes open. He spends a few moments groggy and confused before understanding dawns. And then he begins to weep with joy and relief...and terror deferred.

They all do. For a while, it's all they _can_ do—cry, and laugh, and hug Steven and each other, and tousle his hair, and inspect him all over for injuries even though he assures them he's fine, and just _be_ in the moment, a family reunited.

They _very_ nearly weren't.

The closest thing the Gem race has to religion is reverence for the Diamond Authority, which the Crystal Gems denounce. But they can still recognize a miracle. Even if they made it themselves.

* * *

 _A/N: I don't think there's any direct evidence in the show that Future Vision works the way I describe it here, with likelier outcomes appearing more clearly or strongly than less likely ones, but I figure it would be pretty useless as a means of avoiding trouble if there were no way to distinguish between the two. Even Garnet can't plan for_ everything _._

 _The title references a famous quote from Douglas Adams. Google it to find out why I chose it! ;)_


End file.
